64 exchange offers. $0 paid to publishers.
GrowPad, an SEO and GEO agency for B2B SaaS, had 27 “best agencies” lists of its own and no budget for placement fees. GEOboom read 3,080 pages, found the editors at 736 publishers and offered each one a swap. 136 replied and 64 offered an exchange, which is more spots than GrowPad had room to give.
Client named with permission
- 3,080URLs pasted in by GrowPad
- 64exchange offers from 736 publishers
- $0paid to publishers
- ~$9per exchange offer
- Client
- GrowPad, an SEO and GEO agency for B2B SaaS and tech companies. Its CEO is a GEOboom co-founder.
- Goal
- Be named on “best agencies” lists in its niche without paying a fee for every list.
- Input
- Three lists with 3,080 URLs, its website, and 27 lists of its own to offer in swaps.
- Timeline
- September and October 2026. First exchange deals signed in early September.
- Publishers
- 736 contacted, 136 replied (18%), 64 offered an exchange — almost half of everyone who replied.
- Cost
- About $568 at list price for two months, about $9 an exchange offer. Nothing to publishers.
URLs pasted in 3,080
free · every page read
Fit for the brand 1,572
free · pages where an agency does not belong dropped
Publishers 769
free · one conversation each, however many pages
Contacted 736
paid · 736 × 0.5 = 368 credits
Replied 136
18% of the publishers contacted
Exchange offers 64
almost half of everyone who replied
Importing, reading and filtering are free: 1,508 of the 3,080 URLs never cost a cent.
Before and with GEOboom
Doing the outreach by hand
- Someone reads thousands of pages to find the lists that fit
- Contacts are found one site at a time
- Swap offers go out one by one from your own inbox
- Who gives what, and where, lives in a spreadsheet
- Every list you do not swap your way onto comes with a fee
The system does the outreach
- GEOboom read 3,080 pages and kept 1,572
- Editorial contacts found at 736 publishers
- 983 first emails and 824 follow-ups, signed by GrowPad’s CEO
- 64 exchange offers, each in one inbox next to the site’s DR
- Every deal written down and both pages checked daily
Bring your list. Pay with your own pages.
Your first emails go out the day your account opens; offers start coming the next day.
The client and the goal
GrowPad is an SEO and GEO agency for B2B SaaS and tech companies. Its CEO, Oleksii Andrusenko, is also a co-founder of GEOboom, which we said in our GrowPad AI Overview case study too. GrowPad ran this campaign on its own GEOboom account, the same way any client does.
GrowPad wanted its name on “best agencies” lists in its niche, because that is where buyers and AI answers look. In an Ahrefs study of 26,283 source URLs cited by ChatGPT across 750 top-of-funnel prompts (December 2025), “best X” blog lists made up 43.8% of all the page types cited.
What makes this campaign different from the others on this site: GrowPad was not buying. It has 27 “best agencies” lists of its own, so it had something to offer that costs nothing to give — a spot on a page it already owns.
What GrowPad put in, and what it offered
- Three lists, 3,080 URLs. Pages where an SEO and GEO agency could be named.
- Its website and 27 lists of its own. GEOboom reads the site and builds the pitch from it. The lists are what GrowPad offers in a swap.
- A yes or no on each swap. GrowPad picked the swaps that fit its lists, and its team added the partners to its pages.
The pitch was a swap. A spot on one of GrowPad’s lists for a spot on the publisher’s. No fees went to publishers.
How GEOboom ran the outreach
Seven steps. GrowPad did the first and the sixth; GEOboom did the rest.
- ClientAdd the site and the lists3,080 URLs where an SEO and GEO agency could be named, the website address, and 27 lists of its own to offer in swaps.
- GEOboomRead every page1,572 pages kept that fit GrowPad, on 769 publishers' sites. The rest were dropped before any email went out. Reading and filtering are free.
- GEOboomFind the right person at each siteEditorial contacts at 736 publishers, up to three per site.
- GEOboomWrite and send the pitch983 first emails and 824 follow-ups, signed by GrowPad's CEO. 2% of emails bounced.
- GEOboomSort the replies136 publishers replied. GEOboom marked 64 of them as exchange offers, each with the site's domain rating and what the publisher asked for.
- ClientPick the swaps that fitEach deal is written down: which page and position each side gives, and the exact text. GrowPad's team added the partners to its lists.
- GEOboomCheck both sides every dayIf a partner's page drifts from the deal, GEOboom writes to the partner in the same thread.
64 exchange offers
Almost half of the publishers who replied offered a swap: a spot on their list for a spot on one of GrowPad’s. That is more offers than GrowPad’s 27 lists had room for. 64 publishers in the same niche wanted to list it next to their own brands, and all GrowPad offered in return was space it already had.
Exchange offers land in one inbox with the site’s domain rating and the deal’s status beside each. Filtered to exchanges, it shows who wants a swap, what they asked for, and which deals are already live on both sides.
Why the swaps are relevant
The filtering happened before the first email went out, so every swap is an agency list for an agency list, in one niche.
Dropped · 1,508 URLs
- Pages where an agency does not fit
- Link farms, thin directories
- Pages that already mention GrowPad
Read against GrowPad’s own site. Nothing here gets an email or costs a credit.
Kept · 1,572 URLs, 769 publishers
- “Best agencies” and “best consultants” lists
- SEO, GEO, AI search, link building
- Partners who sell to the same buyers
- One conversation per publisher
Most partners got one spot on a GrowPad list, at the same position they gave GrowPad.
Proof · where GrowPad is live
- Startup SEO agencies, #3 · DR 65
- SaaS SEO experts, #4 · DR 64
- Leading GEO agencies, #6 · DR 61
- Best SaaS SEO agencies, #8 · DR 47
Every one is a list about the same kind of business.
Where GrowPad is already live
GrowPad is named on lists in its niche from DR 15 to DR 65. Every one is about agencies or consultants in SEO, GEO, AI search or link building, so the partners sell to the same buyers GrowPad does.
| Site | DR | Where GrowPad is listed | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| synscribe.com | 65 | SEO agencies for venture-backed startups | #3 |
| inboundblogging.com | 64 | the best SaaS SEO experts | #4 |
| quoleady.com | 61 | two SaaS agency lists | 2 mentions |
| eseospace.com | 61 | leading GEO agencies | #6 |
| scalerrs.co | 49 | best GEO SEO agencies for SaaS and best B2B marketing agencies | #3, #5 |
| breakingb2b.com | 47 | the best SaaS SEO agencies | #8 |
| austinheaton.com | 41 | best GEO agencies for B2B SaaS | #6 |
| radyant.io | 38 | best AI SEO agencies for B2B startups | #4 |
| snezzi.com | 32 | best AI SEO consultants and firms | #4 |
| unfoldmart.com | 29 | best SEO agencies for SaaS companies | #4 |
| miracalize.com | 29 | top SaaS link building agencies | #6 |
| infrasity.com | 27 | best generative engine optimization agencies | #3 |
| angleout.io | 25 | top SaaS link building agencies | #5 |
| lymlyt.pro | 15 | best SEO agencies for startups and top AI SEO agencies for B2B SaaS | #4, #4 |
The LymLyt list for startups is the page that put GrowPad into Google’s AI Overview in our earlier case. The entry on austinheaton.com is the one that disappeared and came back the next day.
Each deal is written down, so nobody has to reread the thread. Two deal records, as they look in GEOboom.
InBound Blogging lists GrowPad’s CEO at #4 on its SaaS SEO experts list. GrowPad gave two #4 spots on lists of its own, one naming InBound Blogging and one naming serpsgrowth.com. All three placements are live.
Infrasity agreed in one reply. GrowPad is #3 on Infrasity’s GEO agencies list, and Infrasity is #3 on GrowPad’s.
What happens next
GEOboom checks both sides of every deal once a day. If a partner’s page drifts from the deal, GEOboom writes to the partner in the same thread, without waiting for the client.
The threads stay open. When GrowPad has room on its lists again, the offers it could not take are still in the inbox.
We will update this page as more swaps go live.
What a campaign like this costs
At list price, GEOboom’s part of this campaign comes to about $568 over two months. That is about $9 an exchange offer, and nothing at all to publishers.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Plan, two months | $150 a month: 50 credits, 3 warmed-up mailboxes, unlimited users and projects, SEO data and placement monitoring included. $300 |
| Each publisher GEOboom writes to | 0.5 credit ($0.50), with every contact at that domain and all follow-ups included |
| Extra credits | $1 each |
| This campaign: 736 publishers | 368 credits: 100 included in two months of the plan, 268 extra. About $568 |
| Paid to publishers | $0. GrowPad paid with spots on its own lists |
Not every publisher will swap. Where one only sells placement, Buy for you pays it for you: one contract, one invoice, a 30% fee (minimum $40) and 12 months of placement protection.
The same work through other routes, by our estimate: an outreach tool plus your own team takes 40 to 70 hours a month, and the services that sell listicle placements charge $250 to $520 a spot, on sites they pick. Figures from the GEOboom pricing page, November 2026.
What to apply, whether or not you use GEOboom
A list on your own site, in your own niche, is something publishers want. GrowPad’s 27 “best agencies” lists brought back 64 exchange offers and cost nothing to give.
A mention on a list about the same kind of business makes sense to the readers of both pages. Keep swaps few and relevant; 64 offers was already more than GrowPad had room for.
Page, position and text, for each side. When both pages are checked every day, a swap stays the way you agreed it — and you find out first when it does not.
Questions, answered
Something missing? .
How many publishers will offer a mention exchange?
In this campaign, 64 of the 736 publishers contacted did, about 9%. That is almost half of the 136 who replied, so an exchange is what most publishers in this niche proposed once they answered at all.
What do you need to offer in an exchange?
A spot on a list on your own site, where a partner's mention makes sense to your readers. GrowPad offered spots on its 27 “best agencies” lists, and most partners got one spot at the same position they gave GrowPad.
How long until a mention goes live?
The first exchange deals were signed in early September, within days of launch. With InBound Blogging, both sides went live within two days of agreeing.
What happens if a partner removes the mention?
GEOboom checks both sides of every deal once a day. If the partner's page drifts from the terms, GEOboom writes to the partner in the same thread, without waiting for you. One of the exchanges in this campaign broke and was back the next day.
Does an exchange cost anything?
Nothing goes to publishers. You pay for GEOboom: $150 a month, which covers 100 publishers a month, and $0.50 for each publisher after that. Here that came to about $568 over two months, or about $9 an exchange offer.
Can I mix exchanges and paid placements?
Yes. Some publishers offer a swap, others only sell, and a few will do either. GEOboom brings back whatever each one proposes. If you go paid, Buy for you handles the payments and you get one invoice.
How this case study was prepared
Figures come from the GrowPad project in GEOboom: the overview, the inbox and the deal records, read in early November 2026. Offer counts come from the inbox and the pages from the deal records. On 2 November 2026 we opened the pages in the table above and read GrowPad's position off each one; unfoldmart.com answers a crawler with a 403, and quoleady.com and austinheaton.com have no URL in the deal records, so those three rows are as GEOboom recorded them. One position had moved since the deal was struck and the table carries the figure on the page today. DR is the figure GEOboom shows for each site. Cost uses GEOboom's public list prices for two months, November 2026, and they may change. GrowPad is named with permission and its CEO is a co-founder of GEOboom. Publisher sites are named; the names of people on the publisher's side and all email addresses are blurred.
Oleksii Andrusenkoco-founder of GEOboom, CEO of GrowPad. Updated November 2, 2026.